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A stunning new Information Storybook
Award-winning author/illustrator Celia Godkin once again turns to the subject of nature's remarkable ability to renew itself in this beautiful new book. A small island in the Pacific exists in perfect harmony, where all the plants, animals and people are interdependent. But the islanders live with the knowledge that their mountain god sometimes grumbles and threatens to awake. When that happens, the people offer up prayers and garlands of flowers to coax the giant back to sleep.
There comes a day, however, when the god will not be appeased. Smoke rises out of the mountain's crater, and ash and cinders begin to fall on the village. The chief tells his people it is time to leave. And days later, when the people have barely landed on another island, the volcano explodes. Soon there is nothing left of the old island but a smoking ruin devoid of all life.
But the story is not over. Slowly, gradually, the island begins to support the stirrings of life once more. And with the return to its lush, former glory comes the hope that the island will be home once more to a sleepy village and its gentle, smiling people.
Written with the grace and dignity of a native storyteller's voice, When the Giant Stirred demonstrates how even one of the world's most cataclymic events can be an integral part of nature's cycle. Celia Godkin takes her artwork into a new, exciting level with oils that are saturated with colour. Her depiction of a primitive people and their jewel-like paradise is reminiscent of the great post-impressionist Gauguin. This information storybook is a must-have for schools, libraries and homes everywhere.
Reviews (4)
School Library Journal Review
K-Gr 2-An island peopled by gentle inhabitants whose simple existence among the lush fruits, flowers, and forest is threatened by another of the island's features: a belching, cone-shaped mountain. Thus the crux of the story is that while the giant/mountain god is sometimes appeased by floral offerings, one day it is clear that it is about to erupt and leave only a barren smoking ruin. The people flee to a new island and "month by month, year by year" as they reestablish themselves, the old island, too, begins to renew itself. Nature's life cycle is complete. Godkin posits this story of loss and renewal as the "legend" of a volcanic island. The publisher marks it with a seal: "Informational Storybook." There have been a number of recent books that intermingle fact and fiction, more often fictionalizing nonfiction. This offering is an attempt at the opposite, and it is not entirely successful. The text is matter-of-fact with declarative sentences; the flow one is accustomed to in "legend" is missing. The repetitive refrain, "on the island," becomes an annoyance rather than a storytelling device. The illustrations, done in oils, have a primitive flatness that almost suggests Gauguin's Tahiti, but they lack spirit and form. The colors are not as saturated as they might be to draw readers in; the people seem either expressionless or angry, not content or fearful as the text suggests. The book is neither legend nor science and because it does not clearly establish itself as either, it falters.-Harriett Fargnoli, Great Neck Library, NY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Godkin (Wolf Island) views nature's "endless cycle of destruction and renewal" through an artistic rather than a scientific lens. Opening on a lilting note, the narrative introduces the "gentle, smiling people" who reside in a sleepy village in a lush paradise. They live off the land, collecting "coconuts from the beaches, fruit from the forest, and fish from the lagoon." A Gauguin-esque portrait of a mother and child draining milk from a coconut typifies the easy mix of cooperation and warmth in this closely knit community. One day, the mountain that towers over their village "rumble[s] like a giant" and refuses to settle down. A full-bleed painting of majestic birds, dominated by red parrots, fleeing the grand green expanse of the island telegraphs the imminent danger. The village chief tells them "the birds were the messengers of the gods" and the people, too, leave their home. The people witness the effects of the volcanic eruption from a safe distance on a new island: a tidal wave rises on the horizon, and "for weeks afterward the sky was black with smoke." Godkin punctuates earth tones with the vivid hues that nature bestows-from the brilliant tropical fish to the vermilion flames of the spouting volcano. These graphics help readers appreciate the contrast between the tranquility of the villagers' initial existence and the violence of the phenomenon that brings it to an end-at least temporarily. A lyrical yet dramatic portrait of nature's cycle. Ages 6-up. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Godkin traces the cycle of life on a tropical volcanic island. Along with lush forest and a lagoon's underwater garden, a village of "gentle, smiling people" goes about in peaceful lives, occasionally climbing to their mountain's top to appease the grumbling "giant" with prayers and sweet-smelling garlands. One day, however, the giant would not go back to sleep, "It rumbled and roared. It belched out black smoke, which fell as a rain of cinders on the village." Then all the birds fly away, and seeing that, the village's chief bids everyone pack up their goods and set sail in search of a new home. Shortly thereafter, the volcano explodes, wiping its slopes and waters clean of life--but only for a time. Richly colored, hazy scenes track the island's change from verdant paradise to devastated fragments of rock around a sunken crater, then the slow return of flora, fauna, and, at the end, human travelers. Though lacking the inventive narrative and scientific detail of Jean Craighead George's Dear Katie, the Volcano IS a Girl (1998), this makes a serviceable overview of its topic for younger children. (Picture book. 5-7)
Booklist Review
Gr. K^-3. Godkin tells the story of the volcano's cycle of destruction and renewal in handsome paintings inspired both by Gauguin and by her work as a scientific illustrator. The text posits an island in the ocean with a volcano at its center. The island is rich in plant and marine life, and its people live on the fruit from its forests and the fish from the lagoon. They try to placate the rumblings of the volcano god with garlands of flowers, but when all the birds begin to leave, their chief tells them that they too must leave before the eruption. They move on boats to another island, where they begin to build a new village, aware of the destruction of their old home. Slowly, flora and fauna begin to return to the sundered and lifeless volcanic rock. Godkin uses two adjectives before almost every noun--"the blue, blue sea," "gentle, smiling people," "a barren, black rock" --which provides a rhythm but can be a bit jarring. There are no source notes, but the point is clearly to place volcanic activity in the continuum of a cycle of nature. GraceAnne A. DeCandido